Melody's Sisters
by Abbzziis
Summary: Who really is River Song? Picks up in a Good Man goes to War
1. Chapter 1

Amy just stood there.

Just standing and breathing.

Right now, it is all she could do. The world was spinning, tilting and disappearing from under her. Her full arms now shockingly empty as everything she had only just grasped to be true, changed again. Her husband wasn't far behind her, she knew that, but she felt a world away from everyone around her. Isolated. That tiny bundle of comforting warmth that had grounded her in this madness had just melted away.

Not having 9 months to prepare for the switch into motherhood would knock anyone sideways but Amy was experienced in the world of unexpected so when she woke up in that terrifyingly sterile, white box, 9 months pregnant and already in labour, it was a shock, yes, but she had eventually adjusted. She became a mother.

She held her tiny bundle close and her entire world view shifted so that the creature was now her reason for existence. Something to be protected at all costs.

Nothing can begin to describe the agony that consumed her when her best efforts to shield her girl from the long grasping fingers of fate in the form the The Silence crumpled to dust. When her baby slipped away.

So in that moment she just stood there and didn't feel. Mainly because feeling would be too much.

When she looked to her best friend for the ever strong, ever-present support, all she saw was a panicked, sad kind of look in his old eyes and the image of the man she knew him to be too melted away leaving an undeniably intelligent but equally lost man behind.

"Amy".

He called to her. Her oldest, wisest friend whom all her hopes had been pinned on, called out her name and reached to offer her some substitute for the missing warmth. But all her hopes were lost now. She couldn't bare the comfort he could give her when her unwavering faith in her raggedy friend lays shattered in pieces around them and her little girl already so far away.

"It's not his fault Amy." Jenny gently reminds her as she avoids the touch he reaches out to offer.

"I know" and she does. He cannot be blamed for the loss of the child. He tried to save her. It's just that her faith in him was so complete she never truly believed he could fail.

Yet he did.

And with such immense repercussions.

Her husbands voice made her turn her eyes upwards, seeing the empty sorrow reflected back in his eyes.

She wrapped her arms around her now flat torso and stepped closer to the only warmth she could find, in her husbands arms. He wrapped his arms around her and held on tight, holding them both together. Both just breathing.

Soon breathing turned to sobs as the walls she built up began to crumble.

Rory and Amy stayed locked in a desperate embrace as the doctor is called away. Rory holds his wife tight, rests his forehead on hers and hears the most heart breaking thing he has ever heard.

"She's gone".


	2. Chapter 2

A sigh marked the loss of another life on Devils Run as the girl from the gamma forests slept.

"They're always brave" he whispered as if in confession as he processed another loss to add to the weight pressing down on his soul. With one last glance at the girl he doesn't know, he stood and looked around.

"So"

He imperceptibly flinched, knowing what question came next.

"What now?"

And there was his dilemma. What now? He didn't want to face what he knew came next. He knew that this was it. The child had gone from within his reach to anywhere, any time.

Vashra continued on.

"They'd have almost certainly taken her to earth. Raise her in the correct environment". She glanced at him probing eyes.

He recognised the truth in her words but also saw beyond them. The child was lost to him.

"Yes, they did, and it's already too late."

"You're giving up." Surprise marked her statement as she span around in horror.

"You never give up"

Suddenly the helplessness and failure made him furious. It's easier to be angry after all. This was his fault and that made him angry at himself.

"And don't you wish I did?" He snapped back, spinning to face her, fully prepared to unleash the anger and frustration at the situation on her for a moment or two.

Before he could say another word, electricity crackled and time momentarily distorted it's self, startling everyone in the hanger.

"So soldier, how goes the day?"

Emotion flooded the Doctor's brain again. Fir,st he registered shock. Then disbelief, until finally, he settled back into the willing arms of anger. If she had been there maybe Amy would be standing holding her child now and maybe this wouldn't have ended so abysmally.

"Where the hell have you been?" He growled as he advanced towards her. "Every time you asked, I have been there. Where the hell were you today?"

His anger didn't seem to phase her. Calmly she responded, "I couldn't have prevented this."

Outraged, he shouted, "You could have tried!"

"No my love, I couldn't. I could not follow you into this battle you created"

"Created?!" The time lords eyes grew larger. "I never wanted this. This is not me!"

"This is exactly you doctor. You have lost control of the storm. Your name, known across the universe as a healer and wise man, will cease to mean as such if you continue the way you are headed."

The doctor spun round and faced away from her calm features.

"They were your friends." His tone hushed and coloured with disbelief as he stared at the reflection of the woman he thought he knew. He continued "And their child and you just abandoned them."

She paused, blinked and took a breath before responding.

"Exactly, they are my friends. And doctor, so are you."

She refused to change the tense, they are still her friends no matter what the situation looked like right now.

"You had to be here, you had loose this..." she gestured around the area, waving her hand until it came to a stop at Amy. Rivers voice turned a little more stern as she continued "...battle."

"How could you pretend..." he started.

River turned and looked him dead in the the eye and spoke over him "And she had to think she had won."

Having momentarily silenced the timelord she turned away and looked at the human friends.

Amy looked up, hearing the chance of hope but not quite believing it.

"I know you're not alright Amy but you will be. Just hold on"

The doctor advanced on the mysterious woman.

"Where were you today?"

This time the question sounded a tiny bit less of an accusation and fulled more with curiosity.

"Who are you River?"

River barely spared the doctor a glance at his question then turned back to Amy and Rory.

"Rory. Amelia. I am truly sorry about today. But I swear on my life there is a reason for hope. She is safe. She has her sisters looking after her."

Loosing one more string of patience and with it sanity, the Doctors voice rose as he demanded: "Tell me who you are River."

At the stern tone, she finally turned to face him full on. She squared her shoulders and made eye contact, she risked looking him straight in the eye.

"I was her cell mate. Or fellow guinea pig you could say."

Amy gasped, her mind instantly jumping to the worst possible explanation of her words.

"No!" River realising the conclusion Amy must have jumped to by mistake and shook her head. "Not Melody's".

Amy sighed quietly, her body loosing some of the sudden tension.

River turned back to the Doctor. "Madam Kirovian didn't just want the child, Doctor. She collected all kinds of temporal anomalies from across the universe. Her plans were not to just create an assassin but to create an army."

The doctor had frozen, taking the new information in.

"She captured people and creatures that had the potential to become temporal weapons against you and your family and she experimented on their abilities, pushed them to their limits, even altering some of their DNA." River's eyes met Madam Vastra from across the room.

"How do you know all of this?" The Doctor asked.

"I was taken when I was 16. My father gave me a gene that had the potential to be altered apparently."

The Doctor advanced a step towards River. "So are you part of the army to bring me down?"

River rolled her eyes. "My cell mate, Melody's sister got me out before I lost my mind, just not before they couldn't tinker a bit." She chuckled slightly.

The Doctors eyes softened. "What did they do to you?" The hard edge to his voice softening slightly as well.

"They amplified my connection with the vortex and gave me the ability to time travel independently, they just didn't do a very good job at it. I suppose if I had stayed it might have been a different story." A sneer took over her features for a second. "Given them more time to tinker."

River sighed, "But instead I was saved and I got out of there before I could turn 17."

The doctors mind filed every piece of information she was giving him away deciding to question further later. For now, his focus was on Amy.

"By Melody's sister?"

Rory having stood and listened to the entire thing so far without saying a word, suddenly had to ask. "Do they take our other children too?" The worry in his voice was clear as was the heartbreak, dejection and anger. The idea that if they were to be blessed again with another child, it would again end in Kiovian stealing the chance it had at a normal life was a crushing thought for the centurion.

River turned to face him. "Its hard to explain Rory." Her eyes flicked back to the timelord. "But I will if you let me."

"Melody is yours and Amy's, but she was conceived in the vortex."

"Human plus" Vastra added.

"Yes, The silence found that anomaly and took advantage." River turned to the doctor again. "They tinkered."

Her eyes searching out Amy's again. The redheads face was even paler than before. "But Amy, they didn't ever consider that is was specifically the TARDIS she was conceived on."

"The TARDIS?" The Doctor interrupted.

Rivers voice again grew dry. "Yes, your sentient ship?" She sighed again and tried to explain it to the bewildered parents. "The TARDIS is alive, she is sentient and her core is made of time. I think you will have met her in human form by now right?" When Rory nodded she continued.

"This connection to time is something even this timelord doesn't fully understand." River muttered.

The doctor went to speak again but River just held up a hand to stop him. Her eyes hard.

"She is the last of her kind, that type 40 TARDIS and so alone. So when…" staring deep into the confused eyes of the Doctor, River dragged out the next words, "oh so long ago, a tiny insignificant ape opened her up she felt emotion the way a human does. As the human connected to time she connected to a human."

Amy was struggling to understand. Struggling to keep up as her foggy mind rebelled against the emotions coursing through her veins. So she automatically turned to the one person who would explain, by when her eyes hit the doctor she froze. The look in the doctors eyes was something she had never seen before. He looked tender, a little sad and utterly terrified. He obviously was deep in the throws of a memory in that second and Amy knew she wouldn't be able to get any answers from him.

"She gained the ability to bond with humans, that day, create telepathic bonds with the human race in replacement of the sisterly bonds that she would have shared with her fellow TARDIS's, something she did with Melody."

Amy turned back to River. "So the TARDIS is protecting her?"

"Yes."

"But you said sisters?"

River took a deep breath, and nodded. "Yes, I did."

"Do you have a sister bond with my TARDIS River?" The Doctor asked a little scornfully. "Is that what you are?"

River merely chuckled. "No, I'm more of a cousin."

"Then who is the other sister."

"She was easily the strongest of us all." Sadness seeped into Rivers gaze. "But she has been in the clutches of the silence for so long"

River paused to take a few steps towards the Doctor. He straightened but didn't move.

"She has been alone for so long now. She is old and alone and perhaps the very last of her kind."

"I think its time we plan a prison break, dont ya think doc?"


End file.
